July 14th, 2021 is the day set by the Costa Rican Digital Television Mixed Commission, which, made up of business chambers and the Ministry of Science, Technology and Telecommunications of the country, recommended to the Executive Power a year ago to postpone the agenda until the date that, now, is that of the progressive restart towards the analogue blackout and the definitive cessation of analogue broadcasts.
It happens that Costa Rica was advancing in its process of transition to digital TV, whose first stage had concluded in August 2019, until the advent of the Coronavirus Pandemic and the need to allocate all efforts to health emergencies led them, almost ago a year, to postpone it and the first stipulated date to resume them was mid-2021.
The indicated day is approaching and the Mixed Commission proposed to resume the plan so that television signals advance in the completion of their analog broadcasts in the areas of Quepos, Ossa, Parrita and Pérez Zeledón, while indicating the areas known as Cerro Santa Elena, which reaches the population of Ciudad Quesada, Guatuso, Abangares, Tilarán, Cañas, Bagaces and Monteverde, among others.
But the Mixed Commission also included the need to define a new region, in which the rest of the country is included, and to which the blackout date is extended until July 14th, 2022 as a maximum term.
A long history
The history of the postponement of the advancement of this schedule is extensive: the first date scheduled to be carried out in a single phase was scheduled for December 2017 and then was postponed until 2019. Later, the plan would be divided into two stages, the first to materialize in August 2019, which was the one that was concluded, and the second for a year later, until the Pandemic arrived, and now it is going for a new repechage.
